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defiant teenage son

I need some advice and quick. My son is 15 and completely unruly. He is never happy with anything, he complains about everything. Seems that he has not been in a good mood since the 5th grade. Today he got ISS (in school suspension) because he threw a piece of paper into a wastebasket at school, after the teacher told him not too. He has been in ISS 8 times this year. He is rude to adults, gets mad when you punish him for anything, kicks and screams in his room. I have taken away his computer, phone and nothing seems to get through to him. His father and I don't know what to do about his defiant behavior, short of signing him up for military school.

Been there, done that got the tshirt. My 15 year old landed himself in a school for children with behavioral issues. It was rough at first, he is doing better now. He has his days but they are far and few between. Good luck it's not fun.

One of my parenting mantras is: a child who is most unlovable is most in need of love. Give your son a big hug, and tell him how much you love him. Let him know how his behavior makes you feel, and ask him why he is behaving this way. He may need therapy, or he may need more positive attention from his parents

Parenting your Out of Control Teen is a really good book. It has great ideas for how to manage really challenging behaviors without turning your house into a negative war zone. When my oldest was an 8th grade angry rebel, this book helped the DH and I become a united parenting team, and helped each day not spiral downward.

Counseling also helped our kid. The first counselor didn't work - she was our age and we had sessions all together. Our DD felt ganged up on. That counselor we had billed as helping the 3 of us. She bonded really well with the 2nd counselor, who was young and pretty, and their sessions were private except my DD had the option to invite the parent who drove her to the session in to the last 10 minutes of the session. That counselor we had billed as helping her talk through stuff. And we got an lucky appointment with her on a day our kid was really feeling in crisis with her unhappiness, which is probably the only reason she agreed to try a counselor again. I'd suggest finding a guy counselor that you think your kid might find relatively cool, and stay out of the session unless your kid invites you in for part of it.

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